Police confirms that Dawood man called Maharashtra Chief Minister’s residence

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

The Mumbai Police have confirmed that two calls were made from the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s Dubai office to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s residence, Matoshree, in Mumbai on September 5. While reports say the dreaded gangster’s aid threatened to blow up Matoshree, police sources have not confirmed this.

Expressing concern over the incident, the State Cabinet said it was a “very serious matter”, which the Union government should address. Security has been scaled up not just for the Chief Minister but across the city following the phone call. Shiv Sena leader and State Transport Minister Anil Parab told mediapersons that every effort was on to trace the phone call. He said the Matoshree telephone operator said the call came around 10.30 p.m. and that the caller asked to speak to Uddhav Thackeray saying he was calling on behalf of Dawood Ibrahim.

Dawood Ibrahim is one of the world’s most wanted mobsters and terrorists. His ‘D-Company’ was notorious for extortion, vendetta murders, drug peddling and prostitution. Their grip on Mumbai in the 1980s and 1990s marks a dark period in the city’s history.

He is accused of having engineered the 1993 Mumbai serial terror blasts. Along with Tiger Memon, another Mumbai gangster, he fled the country just before the serial bombings. Efforts to extradite them have repeatedly failed as it is widely believed that Pakistan protects the duo. In 2003, Dawood Ibrahim was labelled a global terrorist by several countries, including the United States, with a reward of $25 million on his head. In 2011, he was among the world’s top three most wanted men.

Significantly, in August this year, Dawood Ibrahim’s name figured in a list prepared by the Pakistan authorities of terrorists who would face an assets freeze and travel ban. This was part of a Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) by Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to escape blacklisting by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

It was after years of denying the don’s existence on its soil that Pakistan placed Dawood Ibrahim’s name on the list along with Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, 26/11 mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar. However, a day after the list went public, Pakistan once again denied Dawood Ibrahim’s existence on its soil.